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Messages - jamespetts

1
Simutrans-Extended gameplay discussion / Re: Why does train stop while catching a token?
The trouble with using an absolute block "p****ing signal" is that a pakset (such as Pak128.Britain-Ex) which does not use this method of working will not be able to prevent players from invoking this behaviour simply by not defining any token block distant signals.

What practical problem would be caused by defining a p****ing signal as a pre-signal with the token block working method?
2
Simutrans-Extended gameplay discussion / Re: industries arent producing goods
In relation to the crash, would you be able to post that as a separate bug report in a different thread? I always treat crashes as high priority bugs. It would be helpful if you could include in the report a saved game in which this can reliably be reproduced.

As to the issue with the industries apparently not connecting even after you have tried to connect them manually, have you tried linking in both directions? (In other words, if I recall correctly, the manual linker tool may need one to click on the factories in a particular order, but I cannot now recall the details of this). If this is not an issue (i.e., if you have tried it in both directions), this might well be an error, and I should be grateful if you could upload a saved game in which this can be reproduced so that I can try to fix this.

Thank you again for your reports.
3
Simutrans-Extended gameplay discussion / [New release] Simutrans-Experimental 11.2
A new version of Simutrans-Experimental is available to-day: Simutrans 112.3 Experimental 11.2. See here for more information on how to download, install and set up the latest version. For those already familiar with the installation and setup, here are some quick links:

Edit: Updated the list to include a link to Mac OS X binaries.

Note that the Windows binaries contain the Windows version of the no-graphics server, Makeobj and Nettool, and the Linux server binary contains the Linux version of Nettool.

This is a minor bug fixing release, and now includes the Windows command line server version, which now works. The last major release was Simutrans-Experimental 11.0, which contained significant enhancements over the previous version.


A full list of changes follows.

Changes since 11.1

  • FIX: Compile error for command line server.
  • REVERT: "FIX: endless waiting before long block signals direct in front of stations": this was not the correct fix and caused convoys to skip stations after a long block signal.
  • FIX: Bridges of any length could be built over deep water.
  • CHANGE: Players can now set whether access is given to the public player (albeit in most cases the public player overrides the lack of access, but is mainly relevant to whether city cars may use player roads). This access is now given by default.
  • CHANGE: The public player can now connect power lines to any other player's power lines.
  • FIX: Do not set reverse waypoint data for aircraft.
  • FIX: Possible crashes with aircraft with faulty routes on occasions
  • FIX: P****engers, mail and goods would walk/be hand-hauled to their ultimate destination if any intermediate stop was in walking distance of their ultimate destination, even if a further transport link would get them there more quickly.
  • FIX: Aircraft would sometimes get stuck when flying over taxiways
Feedback and testing

Thanks also to all those who have tested Simutrans-Experimental and provided useful feedback: it is very much appreciated. Any feedback from this version would, as ever, also be very much appreciated, including (1) the new features introduced in 11.0 (see here); (2) online play (see here for a list of Simutrans-Experimental servers); (3) general bug reports; (4) information as to how well-balanced that the game is; (5) any difference in approach/strategy needed for Simutrans-Experimental as over Simutrans-Standard; and (6) any other useful feedback.

I should also be grateful for feedback on how the performance of this version compares to recent previous versions (10.27 and earlier).

I shall bid people good playing, and look forward to any feedback!

Note

This topic is locked, as it is intended to serve as an announcement. To report a bug or otherwise give feedback, please start a new thread for each bug/topic. To ask a question about how to obtain Simutrans-Experimental, use this thread.
4
Simutrans-Extended gameplay discussion / [New release] Simutrans-Experimental 10.16
A new version of Simutrans-Experimental is available to-day: Simutrans 111.2.1 Experimental 10.16. See here for more information on how to download, install and set up the latest version. For those already familiar with the installation and setup, here are some quick links:

Note that the Windows binaries contain the Windows version of the no-graphics server, Makeobj and Nettool.

This is a bugfix release, with some minor feature changes. See here for information on the 10.12 release, which was a very substantial upgrade on the previous 10.11 release. See here for information on the previous bugfix release, 10.15.

I have included the version compiled with IPv4 only in the Windows binaries, as some users were reporting frequent desyncs when using Windows XP in 10.4.


A full list of changes follows.

Changes since 10.15
  • CHANGE: The button for ownership on the map legend was too dark for the text to be legible - changed to turquoise
  • FIX: Upgraded factories did not spawn fields.
  • ADD: city attractions and town halls can be defined to be build for more than 65535 citizens (Dwachs - from Standard)
  • CHANGE: Reduce from an to a warning when an impossible average speed is detected to avoid clogging logfiles.
  • FIX: More responsive GUI in the player list for allowing/withdrawing access to other players.
  • FIX: Crash on rebuilding stops in the same place as a different player.
  • CHANGE: Update the credits
  • CHANGE: Increase the rate with which obsolete industries close down, to make them more likely to close or be upgraded before the long-stop date for doing so (which resulted in many industries closing all at once).
  • FIX: The actual industry density was not adjusted when industries were upgraded.
  • CHANGE: Where there is a deficiency of industry, ensure that there is at least an 8% chance of a new industry chain being generated every month so as to restore the correct level of industry within, on average, a year. (1/12 = 8.33%)
  • FIX: Crash on upgrading industries in some cases
  • FIX: Rounding errors in the industry density code resulting in inadequate precision of detection of industry density on loading and saving, resulting in turn in slow industry growth relative to the population.
CHANGE: Normal distribution for randomised journey time tolerances (needs further work).
  • FIX: Crash when the ground under a stop is removed in some cases.
  • FIX: Diagonal tracks became invisible when the season changed.
  • CHANGE: Some slight refinements of the p****enger generation algorithm to make finding towns within range slightly more efficient and effective, especially for local p****engers.
  • CHANGE: Increase the number of retries for finding a destination within range in a town
  • FIX: Unusual timetables would sometimes result in anomalous point to point journey times.
  • CODE: Slight optimisation in convoy loading code (Bernd Gabriel)
  • FIX: Reduced cost of building on one's own land was not applied properly (overwritten before being used; thanks to Lefthand for the fix)
  • FIX: Crash on calculating braking distances in some cases.
  • CHANGE: Do not charge refunds to overdrawn players.
  • ADD: Players' roads will be adopted by towns if they are built within the boundaries of a town. This does not apply to the public player.
  • FIX: In some cases, the maintenance cost of roads was not correctly adjusted for the diagonal.
  • CHANGE: Players can now allow access to the public service player. This will allow private cars to use their roads. Otherwise, private cars will not use players' roads.
  • ADD: Private cars will now provide a toll of 1 SimuCent (0.01c) per tile of player's road traversed.


Feedback and testing

Thanks also to all those who have tested Simutrans-Experimental and provided useful feedback: it is very much appreciated. Any feedback from this version would, as ever, also be very much appreciated, including (1) the new features introduced in 10.12 (braking physics, Carl's new timing/spacing features, the elevated way restrictions, underground station and signal restrictions); (2) online play (see here for a list of Simutrans-Experimental servers); (3) general bug reports; (4) information as to how well-balanced that the game is; (5) any difference in approach/strategy needed for Simutrans-Experimental as over Simutrans-Standard; and (6) any other useful feedback.

I shall bid people good playing, and look forward to any feedback!

Note

This topic is locked, as it is intended to serve as an announcement. To report a bug or otherwise give feedback, please start a new thread for each bug/topic. To ask a question about how to obtain Simutrans-Experimental, use this thread.
5
Pak128.Britain / Re: Bridges
I am just beginning the process of integrating all of these into Experimental, and I have noticed that we appear to be missing the concrete elevated way, which is quite important in modern cities. Are there any plans to add this?
6
Simutrans-Extended closed bug reports / Query about quickstone error
In debugging an error, the origin of which I have not been able to trace, in Simutrans-Experimental's recent server game, I found that the program would crash in the following lines in quickstone_tpl.h:

Code: [Select]
if(  data[id]!=NULL  &&  data[id]!=p  ) {
                dbg->fatal("quickstone<T>::quickstone_tpl(T*,uint16)","slot (%d) already taken", id);
            }

It appeared to come from the code for loading stops, and when I manually moved the line of code execution past the error in a debugger, it would simply return to the breakpoint that I had set there many times over, indicating that, for a particular saved game, the error recurred many times. This was consistent on loading one particular saved game. I commented out the dbg->fatal line, expecting the game either to crash with some access violation when loading or the actual map to be corrupted or missing lots of data (I was hoping that it would help in diagnosing where the problem occurred), but, curiously, when loading the game with that line commented out, it seemed to work fine. More curiously, when then re-saving the game and opening in the released version without that line commented out, that new save also worked without difficulty, with the error not recurring.

Do any of the developers who have more understanding of how the quickstones work than I have any idea what might be going on here? I must admit to being quite mystified.
11
Simutrans-Extended development / [New release] Simutrans-Experimental 9.10
    A new version of Simutrans-Experimental is available to-day: Simutrans 110.6 Experimental 9.10. See
here for more information on how to download, install and set up the latest version. For those already familiar with the installation and setup, here are some quick links:


Neither Makeobj nor the configuration files have changed for this release, but had changed for the previous release, version 9.9. This is a bug-fix release, which fixes a number of issues identified in the previous version. For information on the changes in version 9.9 as over version 9.8, see this post.

The changes between versions 9.9 and 9.10 are listed below; only Experimental changes are shown.

Changes
  • FIX: Various problems with the line management window, including crashes on creating new lines and failures to save settings.
  • FIX: Compile error with GCC.
  • FIX: Correct Standard version numbering from 110.0.6 to the correct 110.6
  • FIX: Crash when using the "Experimental" tab in the settings window.
  • FIX: Better sizes for upper buttons in the map window
  • FIX: Display the meters per tile scale correctly in the map window when "show scale" is set.
  • CHANGE: Remove the setting to change the distance scale (meters per tile) in the "settings" dialogue, as this did not change the scale properly (it is not practicable to change this from within a running game).
  • FIX: Crashes when closing convoy windows and possibly other UI operations (Inkelyad)

Feedback and testing

Thanks also to all those who have tested Simutrans-Experimental and provided useful feedback: it is very much appreciated. Any feedback from this version would, as ever, also be very much appreciated, including (1) online play (see here for a list of Simutrans-Experimental servers); (2) general bug reports; (3) information as to how well-balanced that the game is; (4) any difference in approach/strategy needed for Simutrans-Experimental as over Simutrans-Standard; and (5) any other useful feedback.

Thanks again to all those who have worked to test Simutrans-Experimental, and happy playing!

Note

This topic is locked, as it is intended to serve as an announcement. To report a bug or otherwise give feedback, please start a new thread for each bug/topic. To ask a question about how to obtain Simutrans-Experimental, use this thread.[/list]
13
Simutrans-Extended development / New version of Simutrans-Experimental-Complete for Windows
For Windows users, there is now available Simutrans-Experimental-Complete (download here), containing a .zip file with all the executables, configuration and pakset files necessary to run Simutrans-Experimental all laid out in the correct folders: just download the .zip file, extract the contents to a suitable directory, and run Simutrans-Experimental.exe from there.

This version contains Simutrans-Experimental 9.3 and Pak128.Britain-Ex 0.8.
14
Simutrans-Extended development / Re: missing file [9.0 windows] msvcp100.dll ?
Thank you for your various reports; I have now updated the link to the redistributable file in the "How to get Simutrans-Experimental" thread. The problem that is solved by deleting demo.sve is caused by the known issue relating to loading Simutrans-Standard saved games listed in the 9.0 release thread.
15
Simutrans Help Center / Re: Name change?
Ahh, that wasn't the point that I was making: sorry for being unclear. I meant that, to get to one's own finance window, one can easily press the "finance" button on the menu bar. Apart from clicking on headquarters, there is no way of getting at other players' finance windows, however, so it would make sense to retain that.

Alternatively, one could have the option to change name and p****word (additionally?) in the finance window itself.
17
Simutrans-Extended development / Re: New 9.x branch: developers, please test
After much delay during which I have been preoccupied with other things, I have updated this branch with one or two fixes and all the latest changes from Standard. Further testing would be much appreciated.

Inkelyad - what is the advantage of the attached patch (apologies for not reverting to you sooner on it) and is it possible to put it on Github for ease?
18
Pak128.Britain-Ex / Re: Real life costs and prices.
Normalising inflation would indeed be difficult - the best that one could do, I think, is look at the relative costs of equipment in snapshots over time and extrapolate from there. And ticket prices wouldn't, unfortunately, give an idea as to the relative costs of different sorts of vehicles (steam/diesel, etc.).
20
Simutrans Help Center / Re: Name change?
Ahh, but isn't there another, easier, way of getting at one's own player finance window? (And for other players, one doesn't need to be able to change their name at all).
21
Simutrans Help Center / Re: Name change?
Ahh, thank you, that's most helpful! But it is a little unclear for players. Perhaps clicking on the player name in the player window should take one to the name change/p****word box instead of the finances window...?
23
Simutrans Help Center / Name change?
I see that the latest nightlies include the ability to change the name of a player's name, which is extremely welcome. However, how does one access the GUI to facilitate this?
29
Simutrans-Extended development / Re: [PATCH] Loading pattern for multiple convoys to the same destination.
A question about this - will p****engers continue to pile into an overcrowded vehicle (thus compromising their comfort and therefore the player's profitability) if non-overcrowded vehicles are available? Also, what happens if, during loading of one convoy, another convoy arrives which will reach the destination faster? Perhaps this is of little relevance to p****engers in any event, as it is seldom sensible to set them to wait for a certain loading level; but perhaps overcrowding at least should be excluded from the loading queue?
32
Pak128.Britain-Ex / Re: Real life costs and prices.
Sorry for the delay in replying to these: have been preoccupied recently! My aim is to make the figures as close to reality as I can, and, if the constraints in the game differ from reality, alter those constraints to make them approximate reality as closely as possible.

I was hoping to obtain realistic information about the relative running and purchase costs of different types of rail vehicles (and other related matters) from somebody I know who works in transport, but he has been rather too busy in the event to procure them. What I really need to know, if anyone can find it out, are things like the comparative running and purchase costs of diesel, steam and electric railway locomotives, the differences between the running and purchase costs of large and small locomotives, the difference in running and purchase costs between different sorts of carriages, etc.. Once I have an idea how major factors affect the prices, I can extrapolate for individual vehicles. The same would apply to the differentials between rail and road, sea and air, etc..

The reason why I want these things, at least, to be realistic, at least in relative differential, is that those differentials in cost are the primary drivers of choice as to which vehicles to use in which cases, and appropriate vehicle choice is one of the important elements of Simutrans-Experimental. What I am aiming for is people making decisions in the light of realistic economic constraints, so that they do not need to calculate mathematically what will work in the Simutrans world, but can make the decisions as if they were making them for a real transport network, without having to think about how Simutrans is different to reality any more than necessary. For me, at least, every time I think in the game, "If this was real, I would do X, but in Simutrans, the best thing to do is Y", the game becomes less fun.

So, the challenge is: where does one find this information on the realistic relative costings? Does anyone know (or know where to find) information as to how much more that a steam locomotive costs to run per month and per mile than a diesel locomotive, or how much more expensive that it is to buy a luxury coach than an urban 'bus? All thoughts greatly appreciated!
34
Pak128.Britain / Re: Pak128 Britain query
As to the Experimental version; I don't generally set release dates in advance as, working in my spare time, it's impossible to predict more than a few hours (or, at best, a day or two) in advance of release when it will be ready. I have been somewhat bogged down with work and other matters recently; apologies for the delays, and thank you for your interest :-)